Experiencing the author within
​by Anand J

They say writing a novel is tiresome. You need to struggle for hours, days, months and years to discover a storyline out of thin air; a storyline that gradually pulls you into its world of twists, people and emotions; a storyline that makes your writing an addiction; a storyline that abducts you away from your physical world only to deliver you back there when your mom shouts at you for letting the cup of tea before you turn cold. You need to smile - smile despite screaming SCOUNDRELS deep under your larynx – when your client calls you at a time when your thoughts start to flow smoothly like a coherent chain of lies. Team outings, late night trips, family weddings, friends’ treats, favourite TV shows, Dhoni’s six, Federer’s win, nights and nights of sleep… Your book’s pages will never let the readers know how many sacrificed joys they hide within. And then there’re powercuts. Mosquitoes. Sweat. Existential crisis. To add to the list there’s a proud bunch of friends tweeting ‘My friend has written a novel’ when you have just deleted your 26th rejection mail from a publisher. They say writing a novel is tiresome. And they’re right.

​But, it is tiresome is the weakest excuse one can say to give up something. She has a boyfriend comes at a close second. Every plot, to an author, implants a fear - a fear that threatens the author with its vagueness and excites the author with its possibilities. There are a few plots that, in addition, make an author hallucinate. The central plot of my novel, The bluff, was one among that very few. My novel had an escape door before the novel was irreversibly transformed into a serpentine sequence of words. An exit from my present reality into the world I had created. It was as if I was transported to the farthest end of my fictional world right at the start and as I completed the chapters, I was gradually pushed backwards towards the exit door with the path I had traced getting filled with words. Like the earth slowly retreating backwards to fill the dark sky with the bright, milky moon on a lunar eclipse.

The novel is now complete and here I am back to the present world, now denied access into that very world I had created. That world doesn’t require me anymore. Once created, the creator has to move away and let his/her creation thrive. Author, artist, God... the law is equal for everyone. I don’t require that world anymore. What’s the point in visiting a world that cannot be altered further when there are new worlds to create? Here’s the thing about writing, according to me. Words, almost always, mean nothing to an author. The thrill of writing a novel is in the escape you make to that new world. You don’t have your sorrows there. You dump it on your creation. Your character cries on your behalf. You motivate your character to come out of its sadness. When you return to your present you will realize that it was actually your character that made you to move out of your sorrows. The world you visualize in your novel completes your present by offering a wishful extrapolation. When you are happy, there will always be people there to laugh at your jokes. When you are angry, someone kills someone in that world. It is this hallucination that an author needs. It is to experience this world, people, mind and heart an author invents that he/she writes a novel. Not for language. Not for earning, boasting or dating. Especially dating.

A book ends inside an author’s mind. What you read as words is an author’s permission to visit the world he/she created. The visuals authors see in their mind inspire them to replicate the experience to others. Words become a medium of communication between an author’s mind and the reader’s. Authors care a damn about those words. It’s those visuals that they care. Clear visuals in the author’s mind choose the right words. Right words replicate the right visuals and the right visuals create the right world. An author is just a tool to convert those visuals into a transcript. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The creation of my world is complete. My visuals have spoken. I, now, with utmost humbleness, invite you all to visit the world I created. THE BLUFF, my debut novel is now out on sale after two and half years of toil. Come; experience the thrilling world of Amrith and Aurangzeb as I saw them in my mind.

About the Book

TITLE: The Bluff RELEASE DATE: February 15, 2016 AUTHOR: Anand J. GENRE: Historical Science Fiction/Thriller PAGE COUNT: 369ISBN: 978-1523623013IMPRINT: Black HawkSYNOPSIS: Amrith, a twenty-five year old boy, wakes up to discover 800 Kg of gold hidden inside his body. He finds out who placed them. But he doesn't know why. He starts exploring. He finds the reason for Mughal’s downfall. He comes across the legend of two Rajput warriors that his history books stayed silent about. It is when he realizes that he is now being followed by a sect of blood-thirsty extremists who have been looking out for the treasure for 12 generations. It’s upto him now to save his life and safeguard the wealth from falling into the wrong hands. Join Amrith in his thrilling journey that blends science, history, greed and fate into a game of Bluff.

About the Author: Anand J

ANAND.J, 26, is the co-founder of a creativity consulting company named Spark n’ Beyond. He did his under graduation in industrial biotechnology, for reasons best known to universe and its perplexing design. He is currently an IMBA student at IE Business School, Spain. A TEDx speaker. Writing has always been his mother’s lap, resorting to it in times of boredom, anger, frustration and happiness. With the dream of seeing himself as a successful writer, he has been writing and chiselling this story of Bluff for the past three years. Yeah, he started way back when global economy looked perfectly fine. He is seeing himself as a writer now and waiting patiently for the word to spread to let the world see him as one.